Weekly Review: August 14 - August 18, 2011

Trading during the third week in August culminated in price changes to both directions in leading indices, following last week's sharp declines.
  • The TA-25 index, which lost 0.3% over the week, is 19.7% lower than its beginning-of-the-year level, following a 16% increase in 2010.
  • The TA-100 index was up 0.3%, but still 21.4% lower than at the beginning of the year, following a 15% increase in 2010.
  • The TA Real Estate-15 and BlueTech- 50 rose 4.1% and 1.7% respectively, while the TA Banks index fell by 4.3%.
  • TASE continues to expand Israel’s derivatives market with the launch of options on non-linked shekel-denominated government bonds. Trading is scheduled to commence on 10 November 2011.
  • The Treasury floated government bonds on the local market equaling US $315 million. The year-to-date total of government bond issues comes to US $10.4 billion, as opposed to US $15.2 for the entire 2010 year.
  • Figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that the CPI index fell in July, for the first time since March 2010, by 0.3%, bringing inflation since the beginning of 2011 to 1.9%.
  • The Bank of Israel announced that July's Composite State-of-the-Economy index rose 0.2%, continuing the upward trend at a pace similar to that of the previous four months.
  • The NIS/dollar exchange rate on August 18 came to 3.557, a weekly increase of 0.3% against the shekel and bringing the year-to-date appreciation of the dollar to 0.2%, after depreciating 6% in 2010.
    The NIS/Euro exchange rate on August 18 came to 5.1102 up 1.4% over last week. The Euro has appreciated 7.9% against the NIS since the beginning of the year, after depreciating 12.9% in 2010.